Foursquare details upcoming privacy changes
Foursquare has sent an email to users that details some relatively minor updates to their privacy features that are set to change on January 28. The full updated privacy policy was posted to the site yesterday.
The two changes, as detailed in the email are:
1. We will now display your full name. Currently, Foursquare sometimes shows your full name and sometimes shows your first name and last initial (“John Smith” vs. “John S.”). For instance, if you search for a friend in Foursquare, we show their full name in the results, but when you click through to their profile page you don’t see their last name. In the original versions of Foursquare, these distinctions made sense. But we get emails every day saying that it’s now confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public. As always, you can alter your ‘full name’ on Foursquare at https://foursquare.com/settings.
2. A business on Foursquare will be able to see more of their recent customers. Currently, a business using Foursquare (like your corner coffee shop) can see the customers who have checked in in the last three hours (in addition to the most recent and their most loyal visitors). This is great for helping store owners identify their customers and give them more personal service or offers. But a lot of businesses only have time to log in at the end of the day to look at it. So, with this change, we’re going to be showing them more of those recent check-ins, instead of just three hours worth. As always, if you’d prefer not to permit businesses to see when you check into their locations going forward, you can uncheck the box under ‘Location Information’ at https://foursquare.com/settings/privacy.
Foursquare has updated their privacy policy and easier-to-understand privacy 101 page to reflect these changes along with general changes made to the service since the policy last received an overhaul. They’ve also created a helpful set of FAQs that reflect the updates.
These changes, set to take place on January 28, are common-sense additions to the service that should have very little effect on the way users actually use the service. Full names, no matter the context, should make more sense and the extended display of recent customers should make it easier for businesses to see who their customers are without logging in multiple times throughout the day.
What do you think of the changes?
